Tag: Woodruff

Tempo Trainers and Buckets

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team, Lynchburg, Virginia

I like to pair these two training tools. Each has their benefit and they are complementary. Buckets work power, and tempo trainers help us make sure we aren’t losing the speed when we use resistance. This practice was in SCM.

Tempo Trainers

2x through:

10 x 25 choice @ :30

    Odds min count

    Evens max tempo on tempo trainer

1 x 100 kick no board with max consistent UWs

Buckets (all choice)

4x through:

3 x 25 w bucket sprint to 15 m @:40

2 x 25 w bucket sprint to 20m @:40

1 x 25 w bucket sprint (for time) @:40

1 x 25 EZ no bucket

1 x 75 all out OTB

100 EZ

4 x through:

1 x 25 fast with bucket @1:00

1 x 50 all out OTB no bucket

1 x 75 EZ (kick on back holding bucket the first 25)

50s until…?

Posted on by rdwoodruff

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team, Lynchburg, Virginia

In most competitive swimming situations, there is a defined endpoint to our effort. The race is a certain distance, the set is a certain number of repeats, etc. Introducing a bit of uncertainty is an interesting experiment in motivational psychology.

I write this on the board:

2-3x through:

? x 50 all out effort, off the blocks @ ~2:00

1 x 150 EZ

Swimmers pick a stroke and stick with it for the full set. Every 50 is timed. The swimmers don’t know how many we will do. I watch the group and keep an eye on their effort, their results, and the overall energy in the squad. When those start to flag, I throw a wrinkle into the instructions, such as:

  • Beat your time on the previous 50 to make this 50 your last one. If you fail, do one more.
  • Find a partner. Now, beat your time from the previous 50 so that your PARTNER can be done. If your partner fails to go faster, you do one more 50.
  • Pick an individual and give them a goal time substantially faster than what they have been going. Announce it to the whole group. If they make it, the group is down with the 50s. If not, pick another teammate for the next one.
  • Write down a goal time on the back of the dry erase board for one person. Tell the group that if that one person makes the time, everyone is done with the dive 50s.

There are all kinds of ideas you can introduce here – get creative! Just make sure they are evoking the right response – more effort, more togetherness, more motivation!

7-meter Ins-&-Outs

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team, Lynchburg, Virginia

SCM

We placed pucks at the 7m mark off each wall. Swimmers were instructed to UW dolphin kick the first AND last 7m of every 25. In between the pucks (~11m) was swim freestyle. At each wall, do an open turn and get a breath.

2x through:

4 x 25 @ :05 rest

3 x 50 @ :10 rest

2 x 75 @ :15 rest

1 x 100 (pause and regroup)

On the second round, we used fins and flipped all turns.

Team P200 Challenge

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Coach Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team
SCM

Each of our swimmers has a card with their best time race paces. This set harnessed the team concept and got some good energy flowing. Here’s how it worked:
Each swimmer kept track of how many points they scored in the round, scoring 1 point if they swam faster than 200 pace (P200), 2 points if they swam a full second faster than 200 pace, and zero points if they swam slower than P200. We appointed a captain in each lane, and at the end of each round the captains totaled the points for their respective lanes. We set the team goal at 500 points, which was 20 points on average for each of the 25 swimmers we had a practice. Swimmers were allowed to individually choose their stroke by round, but if they scored more than 5 points in a round, they had to choose a different stroke on the following round. We ended up needing 5 rounds to reach the 500 point goal.

IM Mystery Hour

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA Swim Team at the YMCA of Central Virginia

We did this one recently at a morning practice. Most swimmers said they liked and that it was pretty challenging.

SCY.

? x 50 Fly strong @ :40

1 x 100 Back Fast for time 

1 x 50 EZ

? x 50 Back strong @:40

1 x 150 Breast Fast for time

1 x 50 EZ

? x 50 Breast strong @:45

1 x 200 Free Fast for time

1 x 50 EZ

? x 100 IM Fastest Possible Average @ 2:00

                  (Last one from a dive)

We ended up doing between eight and twelve 50s in each of the three sets. The top part of our group went on the intervals listed — the rest went on an interval :05 slower. My intent with the 50s was to let fatigue build gradually through repetition at speeds that would give them ~ :05 rest. Once I sensed we were starting to wobble a bit, I gave the “final 50” warning. We did a last 50 and then launched into the timed swim of the next stroke.

For the last set of 100 IMs, we did a little “stopwatch roulette ” (start a watch, then stop randomly — use the number in the hundredths pace) to determine how many we did. We got 4 – so we did three from a push and one off the blocks.

Spicy 50s Freestyle

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Ryan Woodruff

The three columns of intervals (SCY)here represent an A/B/C option for different levels of swimmers. Ideally, the fastest interval should push the swimmers a bit on the first 3 rounds and be a significant challenge at the end of the set. This was a good finisher for a recent practice of ours. The last set of 6 got spicy for sure.

Odd Fly Set

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

SCM

We did this one recently for some good butterfly work on a day when we had more swimmers present than could train effectively in the space available. We split into two groups – one group would do the swimming set while the other group did dryland set on the deck, and then they switched. The dryland exercises always takes less time, so that allows for some rest before starting the next fly set.

Freestyle Negative Split and Descend

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA.

SCY.

This isn’t the most creative set ever, but it gets the job done for a cool 4,000 yds of aerobic work. The instructions for our crew were to negative split the long swim, and then make both of the shorter swims faster than half of the long swim. The intervals listed represent the A interval for our group, on a 1:10 per 100 base.

You Gotta Eat Your Veggies

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Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Some training just has to be done. Because it is good for you. Even if you don’t love it.

Today’s set is in 2 parts. The first part is primarily freestyle, and the 2nd part is primarily IM. At the end of each round we did some open-ended scull/swim by 25, which allows for some recovery and re-grouping.

JMI = Just make it

FPA = Fastest Possible Average

🥦🥬🌽🥕🍅🥦🌽🫑🌶️🥒🥕